


A Ship At Harbor

by Bandtrees



Category: Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Infidelity, One-Shot, Unrequited Love, clarification on ship tags: mary still loves joseph n robert also has the hots for mary, please sir step away from the married couple, sex mention, the infidelity in canon anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-04 16:03:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21200342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bandtrees/pseuds/Bandtrees
Summary: She’s not jealous that he actually seems to enjoy their presence, and she definitely doesn’t wish that she made his face light up like they do. She doesn’t see the new Dad playing with the kids and being more of a parent to them and partner to Joseph than she ever was and wish she could be that.She doesn’t.Really, she doesn’t.





	A Ship At Harbor

It’s degrading.

There’s no greater insult than being the second — third, as of late — choice of the man who’s supposed to love you above all else. Mary knows, realistically, it says far more about Joseph’s character than hers, but she _also_ knows there’s no way she’s not a factor. Something about her not only isn’t enough, but actively drives the nice and upstanding Christian family man to commit one of the worst things you can do as a Christian family man. 

She’s long since given up on trying to appeal to him. Adultery isn’t a mere mistake to make once, much less _twice_, and she feels as if bending to his will would make her just as miserable as she apparently makes him. It’d grow to be a depressing fact about their relationship, up there with her frequenting bars and the rumor about town of her fling with Robert.

Which, on the record, never happened. She understands how people can get the idea (she knows there’s _something_ that drives him closer to her, and she’s not as ignorant to his staring and touches as she pretends to be for his sake) and... hell, in some circles, just being that close to a male friend could be considered infidelity. 

She’s quick to establish boundaries with Robert, knowing his habits. She thought it’d be common sense, but apparently the gruff man needed reminding — he’d tried to kiss her at one point, and was met with a swift knee to the groin and an insistence that she was not, and was never going to be, like her husband. 

It’s the bare minimum of a healthy relationship, but Mary takes an odd sense of pride in her faithfulness. As faithful as a serial flirt could be, but given Joseph’s track record, it must take some kind of mental fortitude to resist the urge to sleep with everyone who’s nice to you. She follows his rules — no bringing guys home, which she wouldn’t have done regardless, no drinking at socials with families, letting him know through her or someone else if she was staying somewhere for the night — and it frustrates her to no end that he can’t follow hers. 

She has one rule — to be loyal and considerate. He could spend the weekend bar hopping like her and Robert for all she cares, but she can’t stand to be degraded like that in her own house. She knows Joseph doesn’t think much of it, or think it really hurts her, which is somehow even more insulting than if he were actually malicious.

He doesn’t even consider her enough to care until it’s over, and it makes her heart twist. Try as she might to act like it doesn’t bother her, like all that really matters to her is a good glass of wine, it feels like she’s been gutted every time she thinks about it. Because despite everything, she still lo—

— no, no, she doesn’t. She may have before. But she doesn’t now. Now, she’s just angry and tired. She can’t afford to love him again, because if she did, everything would feel so much worse. 

Maybe she longs for him. She remembers the way he used to hold her in his sleep and misses it, if only because it’s familiar, and she doesn’t like the cold. And she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t started a few fights just for the sexual tension, and an aggressive Joseph was her personal favorite Joseph to be around, but that was... pleasure, not love. 

She doesn’t love him. She can’t — the things she said to him while drunk, sad, and cuddly be damned — because all it would mean was another thing she yearned for but could never have. They both know they can’t give each other what they want (she uses want theoretically here, it’s not like she really _wants_...), so there’s no point in trying anymore. 

Joseph stays with her out of a sense of duty, for the kids, for the community, but Mary knows damn well that if he could choose he’d drop her in a heartbeat to sail the seven seas with their new neighbor and forget his responsibilities. 

If she could choose...

...she would only say to repair things with him because she doesn’t know anything else. If they ever decide to cut the knot for good, which she doesn’t see happening anytime soon, she doesn’t know where she’ll go. 

No man or woman would ever take her knowing her reputation, and Robert, as dear a friend as he was, was like a mirror into her worst self. None of the weirdos at bars are interested in any kind of relationship past physical. Besides, she knows she doesn’t even have the money to live alone — church work doesn’t pay well if you don’t have as much inheritance as Joseph does.

So it’s safer with him.

It’s for familiarity.

It’s because she doesn’t know anything else.

It’s because she doesn’t have any other choice.

It’s because she’s angry, because she wants to teach him respect. 

It’s not for how, even when she protests, she only feels safe and secure when Joseph hugs her, or how she feels like crying when she sees how uncomfortable he looks as he does. 

It’s absolutely not for that. 

She only cares about his affairs because they’re degrading and disrespectful to her as his wife. She sees Robert, and the new neighbor, and only wishes her husband cared about her feelings like he did theirs.

She’s not jealous that he actually seems to enjoy their presence, and she definitely doesn’t wish that she made his face light up like they do. She doesn’t see the new Dad playing with the kids and being more of a parent to them and partner to Joseph than she ever was and wish she could be that.

She doesn’t. 

Really, she doesn’t. 

Because no matter how much she loves Joseph through it all, no matter how much she misses him, and no matter how many second chances she gives him in hopes he’ll finally see what’s right in front of him, he doesn’t love her anymore. She wouldn’t love her either, but it still hurts. 

That ship has long since sailed, and she wishes she could let go just as much as she wishes it could come back. 


End file.
